Feeling down? Then use your nose

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We already know that animals detect and transmit fear through smell, and use their noses to sniff out who's boss in their group. But now researchers have found that other people's body odour can affect our moods. Try, for example, the smell of an older woman's arpits as an antidote to feeling down.

This week's New Scientist reports on a team at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia which tested the effect of body odour from 30 volunteers on the moods of 308 university students. In general the smell from older people improved people's moods, as did the smell from females.

"Old women had an uplifting effect," researcher Densie Chen said. The smell of young men, on the other hand, produced a depressive effect.

The volunteers, who ranged from three year old boys to seventy year old women, gave samples of their body odour by strapping a gauze pad under each armpit and keeping it there for 10 hours.

The participants were not allowed to use any perfumes or deodorants, or eat strong-smelling foods, in the four days before the samples were collected. They could shower, but only with unscented soap and shampoo. Odours were also collected from the homes of all the donors and combined into a neutral control smell.

The gauze pads were then given to university students who were asked to complete a 36-part questionnaire that assessed how positive their mood was without being told what the smells were.

Jeannette Haviland, of Rutgers Universeity in New Jersey, who also worked on the project, says it's possible that hormones make the body odour of young people signal aggression while they make older people smell more approachable.

Viva "l'eau de grandmère"!

The research will be published in a future issue of the journal Physiology and Behaviour.